‘Service Quality’ refers to a parameter which decides the superiority or inferiority of a service. Service Quality can be defined as an attribute which differentiates a service from its competitors. Service Quality plays an essential role in every service business. Service company marketers need to emphasize on quality of their service brands over quantity to survive the cut-throat competition. Why would a customer come to you if your competitor is also offering the same service? The difference has to be there in service quality. Your service brand needs to be superior for it to stand apart from the rest of the service providers.

There are a few key similarities and differences between quality improvement in the product and service industry:

However, in the service sector, there are some service processes that are highly complex and do not lend themselves to standardization in the same way that a process in the manufacturing sector does. Hence, the challenge for the service companies is to consider which service process can be mass-customized meaning that the service process is the same for all customers and in all conditions and then apply the quality frameworks to achieve process excellence.

However, in the service sector, there are some service processes that are highly complex and do not lend themselves to standardization in the same way that a process in the manufacturing sector does. Hence, the challenge for the service companies is to consider which service process can be mass-customized meaning that the service process is the same for all customers and in all conditions and then apply the quality frameworks to achieve process excellence.

An example of a mass customized process in the service sector company would be the payroll and the billing and accounting processes that lend themselves to standardization. Similarly, in a fast food chain, the service processes lend themselves to a high degree of standardization and hence these can selected for application of the quality frameworks.

The second point to be considered is one of the cardinal principles of quality control: To define what is a defect and how is one going to measure it. In manufacturing industries, it is often easier to spot defects as visual inspection or even advanced quality control processes can often spot defects as they relate to the quality of the product manufactured.

However, in service companies, defining a defect is a challenge as the conflict between service quality as demanded by the customer and the quality of the service as offered by the service provider are two different things. Owing to the perceptual nature of arriving at an understanding of what a defect is, it is often helpful to define the defects in terms of customers lost, customer satisfaction ratings, and service turnaround times.